Unfortunately my Hall of Idols is over. It’s a shame really because I loved to do it and I can safely say it was the most pleasant thing I ever wrote here in the blog. I love Rock Chain but the Hall of Idols was just as pleasant and it took me half the time and effort to do it.

However, like any good luxury edition release, I thought about putting some bonus in it.

The criteria used to the additions as bonus was only one: people who influenced me as a whole and I couldn’t pinpoint exactly who individually. And here’s something interesting: I concluded that all bands that I love had some guy in there who I like better. Not even The Beatles influenced me or were as important to me as a whole. John and Paul were much more, especially Paul (probably the greatest idol I have in my life considering all areas).

Anyway, with that in mind I only could think of two bonus tracks and the first one is this one.

Classic Rock Magazine is the greatest Rock magazine ever printed in the history of the Universe. Nobody EVER came close and nobody EVER will. And the reason for that is simple: the guys working there are probably the best EVER in the field of Rock journalism, not to mention the photo archive they have access to with a guy like Ross Halfin, to mention just one.

Geoff Barton, Dave Ling, Malcolm Dome, Mick Wall and Chris Welch among others can be considered the best of all time at what they do. Of course there are great guys elsewhere too, like Mitch Lafon and Martin Popoff from Canada and Ricardo Batalha from Brazil but the fact that those guys are in Britain makes all the difference in the world.

They are from where everything that happened in the sixties, seventies and early eighties (which is considered the Classic Rock-era) started, with the exception of the Glam Metal and Thrash Metal movements (which originated in the US, but let’s face it all of them influenced by what came from Britain before them).

Thus, a lot of them knew the guys doing the revolution in person, they know where they live, they got their phone numbers, sometimes they just need a quick ride in the subway to meet them face to face. No magazine in the world has or will ever have this kind of perk.

And no matter what are your tastes in Rock, they got it. Metal? Yes. Punk? Yes. New Wave? Yes. Hard Rock? Yes. Glam? Yes. Prog? Yes. And so on and so on.

Classic Rock single-handedly made me start respecting much more and even liking things I once hated when younger, namely Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd and Ramones. I owe a lot them.

As a final note, the principle with which the magazine was created is just wonderful. According to their own accounts, Q magazine once did a special edition listing the greatest albums of all time and Radiohead’s Ok Computer beat The Beatles’ Revolver at the top spot. That enraged guys like those who I just mentioned and they said: “People are forgetting about history. We better do something about it. How about starting a magazine that champions mainly, the greatest names of all time?” And so they did.